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sat at home sipping whiskey and paracetamol feeling awful
it made some kind of sense at the time.
So you rather have a media channel controlled by business interests? Thats hardly gonna lead to balanced news reporting is it?
Manufacturing Consent
Amen.
I've not had a TV since I was 9. It's good to watch it ocassionally with friends and family. Not part of everyday life though.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4257190.stm
and thats not even mentioning David Kelly and Andrew Gilligan.
ask harold wilson ...ted heath ...magaret thatcher ...the bbc is healthy when it is giving the government of the day a bad time.
thats why it's worth its money.
mmm whiskey
Thanks I needed a good laugh. ITV has the best soaps and gameshows. Well done, the two lowest forms of entertainment in existance, and ITV does them the best.
Did anyone watch that ITV 50 Greatest Shows a while back? I was struggling to come up with ten half decent programmes from 50 years. Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway was actually in the top ten for God's sake. :banghead:
On topic, I have to agree that in principle, the licence fee is probably wrong, but I really can't bring myself to oppose it. I know that if it was abolished, we would end up with another channel of cheaply-made mass-market crap, with no money being spent on high quality specialist interest proramming, like the documentaries, dramas or comedies. I think that if you asked people a few of their favourite programmes, other than perhaps the soaps, most people wouldn't pick something which gets a lot of ratings. That's why thing like The Office or Red Dwarf have excellent DVD sales, even though they might not be a ratings winner when they're first shown. Blackadder, for example, would never have got a second series on ITV, but on the BBC it was given a second chance, and became an excellent comedy series.
Apparently the hike in the licence fee is to pay for the switch over to digital TV, which I also think is bollocks. We're looking for a 17" LCD TV with a built in digital tuner, and it's practically impossible to get hold of one. It's not as if it's an older style of TV, so why are they still allowed to sell them with analogue tuners in? That would be like them saying "right, were switching to hydrogen powered cars in five years time, and we'll be switching the petrol supply off," then still letting manufacturers sell petrol cars til the switchoff. I just don't see how they can do this when the electrical manufacturers aren't cooperating.
They also need to upgrade the signal. It was raining tonight (shock, horror!) and the digital TV signal didn't work.
Anyway, the extra money is supposed to be going to "vulnerable" people, to help them make the switch. Tell me what the hell is a vulnerable person. Someone who's too lazy to read the manual? Someone who still doesn't know how to get digital TV after all the advertising campaigns? By all means give people the information to switch, but I don't see why I should pay for their digibox, or for their aerial to be upgraded (don't know if this is exactly what they mean).
Also as a side note, I'm an ex film and TV student, and would like to say that I think that any students which require a TV in order to do their course, should be entitled to a free TV licence.
It was a question not a statement of fact - I work for the BBC!
So instead of the "left-wing" BBC, you want right wing Fox???
It's almost as if they came with an identical chip that tells them what to say.
Bless.
With the BBC totally reliant on the government to sanction its funding does it really surprise you that its reporting is so biased?
Aye right
Ladies and Gentlemen:Say hello to Rich Kid!!!
We live in a "society" that puts investment into TV over and above those things in the first place. Would you design things so that you took a £100 from every household and then used the cash to make Dale Winton a game show when there were people in genuine need?
I mean if you are gong to advocate theft, at least have a decent fucking reason for it.
But isnt it the government which complains the BBC has a bias against them?
Do we really need:
BBC 1
BBC 1 Scotland
BBC 1 Wales
BBC 1 Northern Ireland
BBC 2
BBC 2 Scotland
BBC 2 Wales
BBC 2 Northern Ireland
BBC3
BBC4
CBBC
CBeebies
News 24
Parliament
Radio1
Radio1 Xtra
Radio 2
Radio 3
Radio 4FM
Radio 5 Live
Radio 5 Extra
Radio 6
Radio 7
World Service
Radio Scotland
Radio Wales
Radio Northern Ireland
Nan Gaioheal
Asian Network
Plus: Various local TV & radio stations (BBC LDN, BBC South etc)
And don't forget: BBC i (Massive BBC website and interactive text service).
No wonder the BBC is always pleading poverty, it has yet to learn to live within a budget, something the market place would teach them!
Whereas only 3% is BBCi
That may be true, but if only 50% of the budget is going on your core business (plus some more on National radio) you really need to have a rethink. I don't want to get rid of the BBC, but I do want it to get rid of all the excess channels/radio stations/websites it produces (or at least make them self financing)
Why should we read that Chomsky rubbish?
Id rather get stuck into some Milton Friedman - there was a true capitalist!
That;s news to me. I thought he was another collectivist stooge. Politically he blathered on about free markets etc but his policies were done by government intervention, and so were just another type of state control. The central tenets of his theory are incompatible with a free market, because he doesn't allow currency itself to be subject to market forces.
Albeit in a more insidious and harder to spot form, monetarism was another excuse to collectivise everything.
Quote me an example of the BBC broadcasting "Government-controlled propaganda". However, you seem confused as you also accused it of "broadcasting left-wing drivel and propaganda". Which is it? A mouth piece of the government or a bed of raving commies?